


give until you burn (out)

by Haustere



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Game & DLC Spoilers, Gen, Messenger!Ignis, Time Travel, of a kind - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-03-20 04:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haustere/pseuds/Haustere
Summary: Ignis sacrifices what his station demands, and Noctis survives. In the aftermath, the starscourge is a healing, grievous wound and – soon – a memory in sepia. They live out the rest of their lives basking in sunlight.When the draconian offers Ignis a second chance at fate, nothing is what it seems.





	1. below a sky so new

**Author's Note:**

> Set long after Episode Ignis's ending. You know the one. :)

  _Listen well:_

_A king cannot lead by standing still. A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back. That said, a king can accept nothing without first accepting himself._

_Should he stand still, I ask you stand by him and lend him a hand – as his friend, and as his brother._

_Please, take care of my son._

 

* * *

 

Ignis meets his end during peacetime.

Not the quiet, private affair he envisioned, but it was surprise enough that he survived Gralea, let alone what came after. Borrowed time is a phrase that comes to mind, but he’s had more than enough to reconcile the concept, to even feel a smidge of satisfaction.

It’s nothing personal. Or rather, that’s what he’d like to argue in fervent and systematic detail, from chronology to the extenuating circumstances. Noct doesn’t deserve this, and neither do Prompto or Gladio when they inevitably find out.

No matter what he tries, the most Ignis manages is a low gurgle in between wet, rattling breaths. Noct speaks without sound, and it sinks in that he can’t hear anything – not with each rabbiting pulse surging through his ears.

Noct hovers over him in a desperate rush, with bloodied, trembling hands aglow with mana. It’s a testament to his friend’s determination that Ignis lingers still, but he feels so very cold under the midday sun. Sees the sweat building on Noct’s brow, wrinkled with concentration. The pallor of exhaustion observed plainly in someone drawn between opposites.

Ignis drifts. He’s back in Insomnia, untouched and pristine, the cityscape a familiar silhouette through the window. Regis speaks in smooth, avowing tones on the duties of a king, and Noctis – young and unafraid – clasps two hands over Ignis’s own.

A prince ignorant to their approaching fate; and Noct, who succeeds the throne while drawing breath.

An impulse hits him, and he can’t quite help the smile that stretches across his lips. For a brief, private moment, Ignis muses upon placing his remaining hand over the top.

“—Iggy, just hold on, only a little longer, okay?” A short, shuddering inhale. “We’ll have you up in no time—“

The grip shifts to a painful vice, one gloved and the other bare. Rough calluses slicked with red. Something in Noct’s expression twists, jagged—

— _none of this is right._

 

* * *

 

 

Gladio, Shield of the King, doesn’t strike Insomnia’s reigning monarch in the solar plexus, but it’s something close.

Noct has Prompto to thank for that, and the blonde’s intervention is what spurs an end to the matter. At least until the next fuse is lit, and Gladio is forced to exercise his right to knock them into shape. He mourns, moving forward in equal strides.

In quieter moments, all it takes is a casual slip of a tongue, the split-second lurch in conversation when they expect Ignis to chime in, or the misstep of a new recruit – and the pain begins anew.  

It’s Noct that lashes out. For all the time spent after Ardyn, very little of it went into kingly composure. What begins as a spar in the training grounds ends with a trip to the infirmary, Gladio in tow. The king’s mana is better spent supplying the Kingsglaive, and though the scourge is long past, the strongest of daemons roam Eos still.  

In the repose stolen between hunts and the chocobo post, Prompto orbits his friends. It’s harder to discern, with him.

Beyond the first few weeks, there was only so much time the blonde spent in Insomnia, let alone the castle. Maybe, some days were better spent in reminiscence – and there were other occasions, where he shone bright enough for two.

They have each other, and that solidarity will pull them through the worst of the storm. Ignis refuses to accept anything less.

It’s strange. Outside looking in, and Ignis is here but not quite. He goes to follow, to soak in the sight of them because it’s the only thing left he _can_ do –

And he’s back where he started; face to face with the Crystal, housed deep within the castle. Days, weeks pass, and still he belays.

The core pulses with a life of its own; iridescent, shifting vermilion interspersed with an arresting shade of sky. There are days where he simply listens to its gentle hum, a melody of speech and sound that should – by all rights – be a dissonant mess. Once or twice, Ignis recognises a familiar voice.

Some primordial measure of him understands what needs to be done. The rest is irreparably anchored.

“ _You_.”

Ignis pivots on his heel.

Ravus, dark lines of fatigue under sharper eyes, arms tense in a familiar stance beyond the doorway. Ten years in omnipresent darkness did not pass easily for any of them, and whatever convalescence the elected ruler of Tenebrae underwent in the years after, Ignis sees none of it now.

The eye contact is key, and Ignis is bleeding hope, eyes wide.

“Ravus,” he starts, hesitates. The sheer likelihood alone…

(There were moments, when he roamed so close Gladio fixed his attention in Ignis’s general direction – but could do little further than that, arm braced and ready on the Glaive of the Shield. Cor’s weapon, they learn, well into the years of unfaltering dusk.)

Consideration upon forethought; the expansive permutations of possibility. And Ignis fractures under what _must_ take precedence, beyond pride or procrastination. “I need you to tell Noct—“

A blade splits the air in a clarion call. “You forfeited the right to speak,” Ravus snaps, low and ragged, “the moment you wore that face like a second _skin_.”

Ravus is before him in an instant, poised to strike. Ignis flickers, unravelling violet in his wake – not unlike how he wielded the Ring of the Lucii that fateful day – and is struck by the vertigo of backstepping across the room.

He seizes the palpable, unlikely conclusion. “Ardyn is dead,” Ignis corrects, placating. “The day you returned the Sword of the Father, we made certain of it.”

Long ago, Ignis considered Ravus a friend. Surly in a way that brought Gladio to mind, oft rivalling Prompto in impulsiveness before mellowing out in the years after.

Beyond that, he was an unwavering confidante. To his late sister, and then Ignis in some inscrutable capacity.

Today, Ravus jerks his head as if to dispel an apparition. Lunges again. Ignis tears to the side before staggering from the impact as a path of ruin is scored where he stood last.

Part of him knows it won’t matter if the blade makes contact. Nothing else in this world has seen fit to interact with Ignis, and him with it, but. Something about relinquishing the normalcy is what propels Ignis to dodge the next strike, and the one after that.

“Ravus!” He shouts, breathless, “that day in Altissia—,” another cleave, so close his mind conjures up the whiplash, “—we found lady Lunafreya and Noctis, do you remember?”

Ravus stills, his sword glinting like a promise. Ignis presses the opportunity, quieter now, “we both saw her,” he swallows down the lump in his throat, “before she moved on. Ravus, I need you to trust me when I say none of this is how it _seems_ —“

He sees the stream of quicksilver long before it connects, and stands his ground. There’s a point he needs to make before Ravus is anywhere close to believing him.

A sharp, throbbing pain razing trails through him with each breath. Confusion, gaze fixed upon where blade meets him at the chest, seeping black and catching alight with flames that flash in a spectrum of twilight. Ravus, eyes bright and mouth pinched in fury.

The man inclines his head to share a secret. “Do not presume to speak of my sister,” the blade twists with a vicious wrench, and time slows to an agonizing end, “when you bleed like a daemon.”

Deeper breaths now, to stave off the worst of it. If this is how Ignis is fated to die for the second occasion, he plans to make the most of it. 

Ignis’s hand shoots up, half-expecting to meet air. Fingers catch on Ravus’s collar, and he jerks the man forward – close enough speak his peace. No room for misunderstanding. Ignis will do this once, and he will do it _right_.

The wound stings and spits in protest where the metal shifts deeper. Ignis is a man burning alive, but _there’s still time_.

“Tell him it was my _choice_ , not the result of an oath or some – bygone obligation,” he spills.

Desolate, when he could do nothing but watch as Noct relived the same, bloody scenario in his mind’s eye. A circle hewn apart, and Prompto confronting mortality where he was wholly unprepared for it. Gladio, older now. No less immune to survivor’s guilt, a duty from one friend to another unfulfilled.

Ignis lifts an unwavering gaze. Ravus, dampened by the slightest seed of doubt. One blue iris and the other tinged red. It stayed that way – long after the scourge was lifted from their star. A permanent, physical reminder of what the swordsman sacrificed to reach this point.

“It was my price to pay…”

Ignis smiles in a facsimile of reassurance. It is no doubt strained, but never let it be said he failed for lack of trying. “…And I would gladly do the same for you, or anyone else.”

He lets go.

 

* * *

 

 

The pain surges to exponential intensity. Flames lick at Ignis’s skin, charring through to viscera; and the slow, ashen deterioration that sets into him, bones warping into dust and choking every breath he takes. It’s as if the Ring of the Lucii never left his finger.

Concentration slips. Ignis just needs it to _end_ – and relief floods him like the morning tide. He gasps, each labouring inhale a panacea.

_Recollect, Wielder of the Ring._

 

Every inch an entity of lore, the draconian receives him with implacable eyes against a sea of viridian. Bladed wings cut silhouettes in every direction, aloft and immense. Beyond it is a familiar palette of configurations, the selfsame that transfixed him as Ignis looked upon the Crystal not so long ago.

Too much. Ignis focuses on the Astral in full – a welcome point of focus amongst enormity. He goes to speak, a question on his tongue, and is greeted by silence amongst the susurrus.

The draconian motions a preternatural understanding, wings thundering into sonorous height and span.

 

 _The contract endures. Deliverance is necessary to sustain it to completion._

_The Six of the Crystal; the very soul of the star. None abide in mortality – and thus the Infernian rouses once more._

 

Dread plunges through lethargy. His mind works apace, the information assembles, but Ignis can’t quite place it. Something lacking, or a portrait of embellishment made real.

A smaller, honest part of him aches for rest – to meet again with those long lost. It’s a thought that gleams with irreverence, and Ignis can’t find it in himself to care.

 

_Judgement approaches a world untested._

_Should the immortal Accursed chance upon our Star once more, reprieve will linger in the realm of impossibility._

_Calling for a deed replete, the ring shall adjourn no earlier. The Six extend impunity to its drain, O Wielder; however, our intervention shall endure no longer than the allotted interval – during which, a choice must arise._

_Suffer in deterioration, or be made anew._

 

* * *

 

 

“Is it… alive?”

A slap rings through the air, muffled and reverberating. “Hush, now. We wouldn’t want your unfortunate face to be the first thing it sees now, do we?”

“A problem easily solved if you woke up early for a change.”

“Ah, but why take your job when you do it so well,” remarks a voice, nearer now. “Though it wouldn’t surprise me if they _did_ spawn a messenger dead on arrival.”

“ _It_ is very much conscious,” snipes Ignis, and his words slur more than anything else. Migraine throbbing with strength unrivalled, he pulls himself into sitting position. Squints in both a glare and a very real need to stifle what brightness he can. “Your concern is noted.”

The person crouching closest to him belts out a delighted laugh, coat brushing against dust and detritus without care. “Personality! And here I was, suffering under unfair assumptions and poorer company.”

“Your face; my fist. The two will meet when we’re not stuck in a _death trap_.” His vision adjusts, catching onto a metallic glint further back. A figure adorned in understated plate regalia. One gloved hand on the hilt of a greatsword buried inches into the ground, and the other clenched into a threat.

A hand intrudes upon him before Ignis recognises the gesture for what it is. Takes it, surroundings ablur for one arduous second before settling, walls decrepit and the scent of sulfur hanging fresh – magecraft, perhaps. The claustrophobia is new but not entirely unexpected.

“You’ll have to excuse my appalling escort—“ Ignis sees a face, boyish in broad strokes but unmistakably familiar, freezing where he stands. “—Ardyn Lucis Caelum, here at the beck and call of the Hexatheon.”

Ignis slides his arm back, and it almost looks natural. “…Ignis,” he replies, reserved. The draconian only spoke of so much but this, at least, was not a surprise. He simply didn’t expect it so soon. An obvious, expected course of action calls into mind – it is no doubt what the Astrals want of him, but their parting words ring oddly.

Ignis focuses on the pressing reality.

“Death trap is an evocative way of putting it, but _where_ are we?” The longer he looks, the less sense it makes. The architecture is sleek, disparate. Panes of metal and stone intermingling, conventional in a way he never expected from a world two thousand years behind. And maybe, if Ignis distracts himself well enough, the concept of a turbulent afterlife will settle into Fact rather than cruel and unusual punishment.  

“The bowels of Solheim – someone up there had a sense of humour,” answers a baritone. A greatsword swings into lazy arc and the man in plate steps forward in a succinct bow, ponytail slipping forward. “Victus. A pleasure, but we need to cut this short.”

“Ever in a rush,” huffs Ardyn, before readying a staff bearing a familiar winged crest. Ignis is immediately on edge, and beyond that: it was thoughtless of him to relax in the slightest to begin with.

The swordsman lunges, blade flashing. Reeling from residual nausea, it takes everything Ignis has to avoid stumbling mid-dodge. A bolt of aether pierces the atmosphere and he’s left blind amidst the sunburst.

Something rends through his side and the rage that surges forth is vindicating but altogether foreign. Ignis rears back on instinct, flicks his wrist in muscle memory borne of combat – and the welcome heft and hilt of a lance greets him. Long range; finesse over might.

Ignis is undeniably weary, but his mind is true. He quick-steps from one attack, countering another in a military jab, adrenaline working through him like a shot of ebony. Victus takes caution where he should, and Ignis deflects a slower, surveying strike. The force behind it is deceptively light but it’s enough.

Lance spinning in a deft twist, the momentum wrenches the greatsword into a nearby pillar.

Nothing from Ardyn but, knowing the man’s prowess with illusion, he takes the observation with a grain of salt. The odds aren’t particularly in his favour. If he undersells himself, chances are they’ll do the work for him.

It’s fortunate he spent so much time sparring with Gladio, even when there was no need of it beyond a Glaive rallying against a Shield.

On some occasions, it was nothing but a demonstrative spar. Designed to “boost morale” amongst recruits, but they all knew it was Noct who enjoyed the leisure – one of many singular moments where he could forget he was a King and cheer with gusto. Prompto, happy to stir the pot, commentating each successful blow.

And other times, they fought to maim. Posture, patterns of movement, areas of the body slower to be protected than others. Victus is seasoned, but Ignis tires of patience, of being effected rather than the affectee.

He ducks under an ambitious cleave, sweeping his legs forward, intent on knocking his attacker off-balance.

Angling his lance just so, Ignis plants the shaft against the ground and braces as the blade cuts clean through tendon.

Victus mitigates the fall with a roll; greatsword abandoned, and nurses his shoulder with a hiss. An excessive core of gravity fills the distance between them, imploding a split-second too late to bestow serious harm.

This time, Ignis is prepared: arm already coiled back, and the lance shoots forth in the window between spellcast recovery and reaction.

The trajectory slows – shattering barrier upon barrier – and Ardyn plucks it out of the air. “Certainly an interesting design,” he remarks, deliberate. “You know, it’s a shame they couldn’t make this easy.”

A flask shatters, and ice blooms beneath his feet. Ignis lunges to the side with all his weight, but a fine point impales him through the arm. More than anything else, it’s the cold that jolts a gasp, and Ignis is left reeling from the persistent sheer of frost, like acid meets skin.

Ignis retreats to a safer vantage point, both attackers in line of sight. “ _What do you want_ ,” he demands, temper flaring. His voice carries with a strange reverb but thinks little of it – not when he’s been marked to die for the third Astral-damned _time_.

Ardyn grins, patronising. “ _A Covenant, of course_.”

An ethereal awareness stirs from slumber, like recognising a melody after catching the first lilting notes. Ignis doesn’t quite gape; neither does he respond in due order. _The Infernian rouses once more. A_ messenger _remade._

If that is how the cards were meant to fall, then Ignis would accept the outcome and make it his own. More than anything else, the situations grates at him – all this, so easily avoidable. The temperature rises, liveable now, his pain assuaging with each climbing degree.

He hisses, quiet now but sharper still. “ _And you didn’t think to_ ask _?_ ”

“You’re making it worse,” Victus observes, sotto voce. To which Ardyn shoots the man a deadpan look before fixing Ignis with full attention, speculative.

“ _You’ll have to excuse the misunderstanding. Our last Covenants were preceded with… a test of worth_. _For various reasons, we weren’t expecting you to be any different._ ” Staff dispersing to its armiger, Ardyn fans his hands out in a bland, inoffensive gesture. Ignis very nearly acts upon the impulse to strike the man down where he stands.

Something holds him back. A demand to reconnoitre before action, or the glimpse of humanity in someone who sorely lacked it. Maybe, he just wants to go back, untroubled by a prophesied reckoning.

Above everything else, the reality sinks in. Ignis is never going to see Noct or his friends again. And he hopes – with every fibre of his body – that they move on, spending the rest of their years unscathed. If the Six have any care for machinations staying their course, then guaranteeing the lives of an insignificant few is the _least_ they can do.

Ignis breathes, calmer now. An idea unfolds. _You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain_ , Prompto laments, melodramatic, before attempting to reclaim a preening chocobo chick from Ignis’s protection. Noctis, exhausted in the Archaean’s aftermath. _And we’re doing this_ how _many more times?_ Gladio shoots back not a moment later. _Hey, at least it’s nothing like ye olden days._

Short of walking in the man’s shoes, what better way was there to seal judgement?

He speaks again in the tongue of ancients. “ _Then I hereby state the commencement of such a trial. Prove your resolve, and I shall go as witness from this point on_.”


	2. horizon where it meets the parting sun

_Pyreburner._

_That heart of flame was turned to ash once…_

 

* * *

 

 

Solheim.

Home of the Infernian and man alike; the first civilisation, doomed to destruction _._ Ignis only recalls so much of his childhood tutelage, and recall was often all they had in the wake of the ruin unleashed upon Insomnia; from the day a peace treaty never came to be, and the dilapidation that came after.

Niflheim, Ravus, Aranea. The Covenants.

Lady Lunafreya, dearly departed. And… Ardyn.

Noctis – shaky with equal parts fatigue and elation – with Prompto supporting one shoulder and Ravus the other. Gladio looking on. Their first glimpse of a dawning day in years, and Ignis could do nothing but soak in the spectacle. Even now it shines fresh in memory.

Pre-tech generators humming to life to supplement a dimmed Crystal, and the future free for their own choosing. He, like many others, adapted to something beyond survival.

But this Ignis knows with complete certainty: Whatever Solheim had to offer in his time, it was enough to bolster Niflheim’s research on humans and beasts alike. Daemons fashioned into an instrument of war, and the starscourge in resurgence after nearly two thousand years of respite. And here was Ignis, stranded in a strange land, acting as glorified intermediary.

Correlation did not imply causation but – whatever the mechanism – there was no denying it all began here... And that meant mitigating the aftermath. A hefty task when Ignis knows virtually nothing of the city, or the extent of its research. All without abandoning his credibility as messenger.

And yet. Who is he to interfere in delicate history? What of Prompto, if Ignis’s scattered conjecture holds any weight?

A logical part of him knows preserving the timeline has little to do with it. The draconian sent him back, after all. Procrastination ill befits a retainer, let alone a Glaive, but at the same time it seems a wiser course of action to see the city in earnest before leaving his plans to fate.

Each step reverbs against a structure nearing the end of its lifetime – to all appearances, it’s less a staircase and more a general framework held aloft from roiling currents of lava.

The stench of sulfur alone makes Ignis regret stepping foot out of the rounded auditorium, but he supposes it was pertinent to move on. After a curious number of attempts at engaging the elevator, Ardyn finally bade to retrace the path they paved prior. Thus: Here they were, making steady ascent.

“Careful on the stairs,” calls Victus, voice loud enough to be heard over metal clashing with metal, “Ardyn here wouldn’t shut up the last time they collapsed underneath him.” Casual is one way of putting it when he all but throws his companion under the catoblepas.

“This is a repeat occurrence, I take it?” It was one thing to know the man who would later haunt Noct’s journey like an uninvited guest (the irony does indeed occur to Ignis) – and it was another to extract amusement from Ardyn’s past failures.

“My companion exaggerates,” Ardyn waves off with a thin smile, burning a hole through the swordsman’s back. “Though it’s worth noting he left me to fall in the first place.”

“You were a leap’s distance from the ground!” Victus calls back, combing back a dark fringe where it hangs loose, both exasperated and vaguely amused. “A child made that landing with nary a hair out of place—”

“Observe! Not even a lick of sympathy,” Ardyn cuts in with the aplomb of a showman, shooting Ignis a look of commiseration. “This is what I deal with day in and day out. From a glorified meat shield, no less.”

“Keep that up and you’ll have more than a shield to worry about,” Victus retorts, not missing a beat.

Ignis might be investing due time to arrive on a decision, but he doesn’t have to like someone who would later become the Accursed he knew in far too vivid detail. “While it certainly seems a buckling experience,” a pause, since schadenfreude is best enjoyed slow, “you’re none worse for wear, aren’t you?”

Victus huffs in amusement. “From the way he targes about it, clearly not.”

“It’s aegistounding you entered my employ in the first place, Lentesco,” Ardyn muses, unreadable. Victus trades a significant look before shaking his head, muttering lowly about _favours_ and _hazard-prone siblings_.

“Ignis, right? You’re a damn sight better than the draconian’s lot – all sycophancy and no spine—” Victus grins like a man vindicated, slowing his paces to match Ignis’s. If the myriad scars stretching across the swordsman’s face crinkle, he takes no care in it, unselfconscious in a way that places him older than Ignis originally suspected. Not unlike Gladio, but the similarities end where a great jagged line stretches from Victus’s jaw to the bridge of his nose.

“—small wonder, too. I’d always admired the infernian for all he did for Solheim,” Victus continues, though much of his gusto is sapped away and replaced with something like condolence, “it’s a shame what happened. Truly.”

“The draconian’s lot?” Much of the universe is determined to leave Ignis in confusion, and he may as well attempt to remedy the situation. What supposedly happened is a secondary priority, and one he could resolve by making inference of the state of their surroundings.

A look of understanding dawns upon the swordsman, and yet. Something about it rings false. Troubled. “Ah, pardon the slang. I meant—“

Ardyn raps his knuckles against a plated back, jaw locked and shoulders stiff in something like warning, eyes glinting amber as they roam the corridor adjoining their stairway ascent. Victus turns away, and the two halt as they sink into wordless conversation. A hand gesture there, the defiant jut of a jaw, and an emphatic _no_ as Ardyn shakes his head.  

Victus is first to dispel the silence, sighing slow. “We’ll need to detour through here. Ardyn’s been itching to investigate for survivors the moment we stepped foot into the city,” he relents, treading where stairwell meets passage. The length of a bladed mace meets ashen atmosphere as it materialises from the armiger, kite shield occupying the man’s right hand. “Tread lightly and voices to a minimum – the last thing we want is an easy ambush.”

Daemons, then. It’s clear to see that Ardyn and Victus aren’t being upfront, but what strikes Ignis is the inconsistency: transparent on the rites of a Covenant, and an interruption too abrupt to be anything but distraction.

Pacing further back is Ardyn. No weapon yet at the ready, but knowing the mage’s reaction time it seems more an advantage to have both hands free than anything else. Chants echo forth as the man pre-casts – mana transfiguring into shaped elemancy, and barriers shimmering into place.

The two settle into rote rhythm. Part of Ignis wonders how far they are into whatever Astral-ordained journey they’ve undertaken. The rest staves away the surge of déjà vu – a fleeting, effervescent vision too bright to parse – in favour of vigilance.

His eyes adjust with ease to the murk, lingering on distant details Ignis long thought were beyond his myopia. A small concession, perhaps, from the draconian to a pawn being thrown from pan to fire.

Heat swells in his wrist, and a short twist calls a welcome weight. The lance espouses a design not unlike his own, back when he bore the Glaive with breath to spare. Spokes of obsidian and bone manifest the starkest of differences, twining the ends of the lance and where the blade meets smouldering hilt. Reminiscent of the infernian’s weapon of choice, but not quite.

He dispels it in favour of a dagger of similar configuration. Smaller quarters meant limited room for each arcing blow, let alone avoiding friendly fire. If there’s any chance of Ignis wielding elemancy per his status as a messenger, he’d rather the opportunity to practice it first. Noct’s fledgling attempts at magecraft were lesson enough in that respect.

A worn, anachronistic sign informs Ignis they’re journeying through the second basement floor if he understands the script correctly. The rest is as decrepit as he expects; immaculate flooring otherwise marred with detritus and scorch marks making canvas of the expanse; and granite walls fractured to reveal utter darkness beyond their bounds. If any part of the floor is inhabited by survivors, Ignis suspects they aren’t the friendly sort.  

More of Victus’s exchange rings oddly, and Ignis files away what went unanswered for a more opportune occasion. Whatever catastrophe met Solheim, it had clearly passed – or so it seemed under casual examination.

Knowing the history was one thing; it was another to grasp the lives at stake. In a living space of this enormity, the traces of habitation and home make it far too easy to envision the lives they must have led. It would be easier to believe he was back in the Prince’s quarters – disarray innocuous. Borne of sloth rather than violent upheaval, cadavers strewn across without care.

Ignis looks away. “What makes you certain they’re here?”

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Ardyn remarks, harsh where it isn’t quite muffled by cool disinterest. The mage conjures a globe of iridescent flame, shedding illumination where ambient light falters as they trek forth. Another appears beyond Victus, and the swordsman follows without hesitation where it dips right to a nondescript corridor. Yellowed safety lights glow overhead but they do little to impart what lies beyond their immediate radius.

“The city proper is overrun with daemons; _we_ are investigating a hotspot of activity,” he continues, brandishing a wintry hand pouring with sublimation. Too close to Ignis for comfort, and too far to dignify it with any sort of reaction. “And where there are predators, there is _prey_.”

“Not the time, Ardyn,” scolds Victus, attention fixed onward, “we’re close, and you’re nuisance enough without waving blizzara at our backs.”

Shaking his head in stiff disappointment, Ardyn cradles the pre-cast once more. “Ever the enemy ‘gainst dramaturgy, it seems.”

No matter what Ardyn suggests, Ignis recognises nothing of the sort. At least, nothing beyond the low thrum of white noise. A whistling breeze there, and seismic reverb in another direction. Their steps scuffing pavement—

A shimmer in his periphery is all the warning he gets. Ignis jerks back, dagger flicked to reverse grip.

Claw meets steel, and the impact flashes in the lowlight before throwing Ignis back, even as he redirects much of the force away. He throws one leg back while locking the other, narrowly remaining on his feet.

The standstill allows him the briefest of glimpses: A gaping maw, lined with glinting rows of teeth. Long, protuberant limbs, with pallid skin stretched tight around each rounded joint. A malignant knot of eyes and hair settled atop the crown of its head.

The daemon slips back with a whistling rasp, and clipping Victus’s shield where it weathers the blow of another hulking mass. The kite shield lifts, and a slipstream of ice grazes underneath to pin the raking claw of a daemon where it was too slow to retract.

The distraction is enough. Victus swings a vicious blow, his mace meeting the daemon’s skull with the clap-crush of bone.

Ardyn, never one to let slip opportunity, and Victus who relents to better suit happenstance. It’s a wonder they’ve come so far without giving up life or limb, he muses, hurling his dagger toward a particularly ambitious attacker, and the daemon wails, swiping blind into the air just beyond the mage’s exposed flank. Ardyn does little to acknowledge the near miss aside from flashing an untroubled grin that edges too close to what he recalls of Prompto. The similarity is jarring as it is bittersweet.

Focus.

Ignis flexes his hand. A warmth just short of scalding, flaring with each thudding pulse. He experiments, calling upon a dagger, another, and another – each possessing the same balance and heft as he makes short work of the daemon, and hurls the other two at his first assailant as it lurks into the light.

They make a surprisingly steady pace through the basement. The deeper they go, the more barren it seems. Residential units make way for barracks, armaments strewn without care, and blockades obscuring what little range of vision they had to begin with.

Hope sprouts like a weed, stubborn despite the odds. If Ardyn quickens his pace, Victus makes no mention of it aside from adjusting in turn. Another globe of light melts from the mage’s fingertips, brighter than its predecessors.

Still, he feels nothing. Ignis is sure of the danger lurking out of sight, and he has nothing to show for it. Was there something he lacked, to be oblivious to the scourge? Or something gained – a step of mercy when the Draconian bade him to pay his end of an Astral-damned contract?

A gloved hand claps his shoulder, and Ignis can’t quite extinguish his annoyance at the lack of a _shirt_ when someone up there deigned to give him shorts, of a kind. Paying tribute to the Infernian was one thing but it was another to recycle the _look_. Even the leopard-print shirt – gifted by Noct, ever naïve in fashion – would have been a welcome sight.

Ardyn lets out an amused huff, ever perceptive. “A messenger fit to eviscerate us in our sleep, and they make it body-shy.”

“If you’ve a mind to survive this covenant, you could start with _he_ , not _it_ ,” he deadpans, long inured to shenanigans via repeat exposure. Peace said, he raises an expectant brow at Victus, who drops his arm before quickly glancing away to take inventory of the flasks lining his belt.

“My apologies – you were about to trip a wire,” Victus has sense enough to look repentant – though judging by the slight uptick of his mouth, the sincerity is another matter. “Most we’ve encountered are duds, but I’d rather deny the roulette for another day.”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about,” Ignis relents, considers, and while an overcoat would do leaps and bounds to soothe the lingering discomfort, he hasn’t fallen far enough to _ask_ , “the fault is mine for drifting off.”

The glint is obvious now that he knows to look for it, and Ignis kneels to examine the mechanism. Fishing line gives way to a trigger with impeccable cable management; hidden from casual perusal from his direction, but blatant from the other.

Victus steps into periphery, careful of the line. “It’s solid trapwork – from cannibalised components no less,” he relents, contemplative.

Ardyn shouts, words indistinguishable before being cut short.

Victus snaps his gaze back, mace coiled into a taut grip. Ignis scarcely has time to react, an immutable chill running through him before freezing at the bite of cold steel against his back.

“Drop your weapons. Make any sudden movements and your mage will bear the brunt of it.” The command is sharp from behind him.

“We’re here to help, you bloody degenerate!” Victus looks as though he’d rather pull out his own teeth, eyes bright with intent.

The blade sears where it meets skin, and Ignis rallies against every instinct in his body to remain placid. “To arrive so long after the fact makes you a scavenger. We recognise your regalia and want no part in the affairs of the Hexatheon - Solheim has suffered enough.”

Metal grinds against concrete, and Ardyn heaves a muffled scream.

“Weapons. Down.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: Ignis can't catch a break, feat. Ardyn and some sick-nasty ghosts


End file.
